The road to transportation paradise is paved with well-intentioned reports. But endless studies will keep us going in perpetual circles, stuck in transit purgatory.

The latest advisory panel, appointed by Premier Kathleen Wynne last September, was supposed to point the way ahead. But its new 36-page report, Making the Move, won’t get us very far.

Just in time for Christmas gridlock, it’s a consultation gift-wrapped in a conversation inside an iteration. And tells us nothing we didn’t already know.

The panel goes over the same ground already covered in a landmark report from Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, last May — which was itself the culmination of consultations dating from its Big Move report in 2008. The latest recommendations are a repackaging of that material, with a little mixing and matching:

The panel says a 5-cent-a-litre gas tax recommended by Metrolinx can be dialed up or down, and the 1-point HST hike proposed last May could also be adjusted — depending on how much appetite the politicians have for voter resistance. A parking levy is rejected, but a corporate tax increase is suggested instead.

A bit less revenue here, more borrowing there — six of one, half a dozen of another — it’s a shell game within a broader political game.

There’s nothing wrong with a group of influential citizens coming together at Wynne’s behest to undertake public consultations. But when the chattering classes are just talking to themselves, it’s an echo chamber.

The report reads like a footnote to a missing road map. And its appendix tells the story of missed opportunity:

Only 225 people bothered to fill out an online feedback form. At four public meetings across the GTA (population 5.6 million), a total of 174 residents showed up (a panelist told me staff outnumbered participants at one meeting).

On Twitter, the panel attracted 270 followers as of late November. By Monday night, four days after the report’s release, 42 more tweeters had tuned in. Gridlock goes viral? So much for social media.

Chaired by Anne Golden, the panel’s report reads like a hastily-completed homework assignment — showing mastery of the material by a new student but no bold ideas. It takes a pass on tougher issues like road tolls, and takes the path of least resistance by advocating more borrowing to avoid tax hikes.

And it states the obvious: “The most common and forceful message that emerged from all of our public meetings and consultations is that the public has very little trust in how transit is planned.”

Right. And what better way to feed public cynicism (and indifference) than for the premier’s office to appoint another panel of outsiders, then pull strings behind the scenes. This assignment called for someone with a higher public profile, such as former mayor David Crombie, to reach out to a broader public, generate excitement, and inspire people to come together over gridlock.

If there is any lasting benefit to the report, it may be in persuading the premier — who has a penchant for perpetual conversation — to stop confusing listening with leading. Perhaps Wynne, who has 35,000 followers on Twitter and 13 million Ontarians looking to her for leadership, will now realize that it’s time to stop conversing among the converted.

She needs to start investing her own political capital on transit — or she'll never raise the funds needed to get us back on course. That means reaching out to commuters and confronting opposition scaremongers.

Wynne may be getting the message.

“We’re not going to have another consultation,” she told me and colleague Robert Benzie when we asked about the stops and starts.

“I have to take responsibility for my leadership and for my instincts on what is critical . . . We've talked about this for a very long time. People are tired of talking about it. They want to see action.”

A transit plan, with revenue measures spelled out, will be part of next spring’s budget — even if that trigger’s the government’s defeat, Wynne added. As a former transportation minister, she knows it has taken a long time — too long — and time’s up.

A new transit plan next spring would have Wynne’s fingerprints on it, which means she’d have to defend it on her own — without hiding behind long-forgotten panels. If not, she too will end up a footnote to the Big Move’s transit road map.

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